Considering that this other Chinese HDMI to I2S converter board that people discovered last year sounds slightly better in some ways than does my Vanity HD card inside of my Oppo 103, it seems to me like this could have some serious potential, assuming that it works.

FWIW: A friend of mine purchased a linear power supply for his 103 from this same guy so he claims. And this power supply has worked fine inside of his 103. So, that is one positive data-point should anybody be considering this board…

I purchased this board as well. Mine did not come supplied with a ribbon cable which makes the pass-through feature of this board impossible to use if you can’t locate one of those oddball 22 pin flat ribbon cables. Did yours come with this cable? I’ve been searching every source that I know-of, and I have yet to find an exact match for this cable.

Also I can confirm that mine DOES indeed seem to reverse the channels for SACDs when it used inside of my 103. But I can confirm that it does NOT have the preemphasis issue that the Chinese HDMI board has.

I haven’t spent a lot of time listening to my board yet (because I’ve been waiting for a compatible ribbon cable before trying to mount it), but in the short time that I did spend listening, it seemed to sound very similar to the Chinese card.

**It’s not clear from the photo, but is that black piece an HDMI port?**

If its the one on the PCB then no, its unused, HDMI port is on the back.

**Did you cut out the back of the 103, per the seller’s photo?**

Yes (Used a Dremel to cut gap to fit board)

**Anything else to know about fitting the board, such as how easily it attaches to the 203’s chassis - or does it attach to the back and sit in the air?**

Has 2 mounting points wither side of back of card, which connect through venting slots in back of Oppo and lock card to back panel.
(Mounting screws didn’t come with it, M3 machine screws work perfectly)

**What coax were you using, i.e., for sound comparison?**

Black Cat Silverstar 75 designed by Chris Sommovigo.
The i2s board sounds better, particularly on disk playback.
Streamed sound quality is “different not better” than Roon feeding the DS’s Bridge 2 (Though the card’s sound is changing with some hours on it - I’ll reserve judgement on that for now)

**To get a better sense of your comparison, what else is in your system, components and cables?**